


Give A Little Time

by glockenspielium



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, I'll probably revisit this later and make the flow a bit nicer.., Secret Santa, Unspecified Doctor(s) (Doctor Who), prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:11:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9398963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glockenspielium/pseuds/glockenspielium
Summary: “When people reach the age of 21, they stop ageing until they meet their soulmate, so they can grow old together. Person A has been 21 for the past 200 years… until he meets her.”Written for emkaywho in the 2016 Doctor Who Secret Santa! Slightly delayed but hope you enjoy it :D





	

 

It all starts the way that it does for everyone else, or so it seems. His parents met at twenty three, they didn’t have to wait for long. He’s grateful for that, at the very least. Though they were both long gone by the time he was able to properly appreciate what soul mates were, what that meant, he never grew tired of the stories of their fated love. 

The years pass by in misadventure and well intended investigations. He’s 18 years old, more brilliant than anyone expected him to be and proud of it. He’s tall and gangly, studying more than he has hours to comprehend and deeply in love. In love with his roommate, who is, in return, mad about him, too. Or so it seems. The world passes by them in a giddy haze, for they are enlightened by love and have no time, intentionally or not, for those who cannot understand what they see. They watch the stars and hold hands in films about soulmates just like them. Tales of finding love, despite all the odds, conquering and triumphant. It was sycophantic, but enchanting nonetheless. 

No one could have prepared them for what came next. Later, when he asked his friends, they made noises to suggest they’d seen it coming. And yet, no one had ever said anything. Who can say for sure whether they actually saw anything other than a loving couple, a grasping pair of hands, a dependant bond. Hindsight is a bitch, sometimes. He’d heard stories of unrequited bonds, as they all had, but he was so certain that they were in love, that he was in love.

It was easy to ignore the warning signs. He put his youthful complexion down to too many hours in the library, his limber body and fast metabolism down to good genes. But jealousy plants steady seeds of doubt, and eight years after they’d blown out his 21 st birthday candles together, he woke up to an empty bed and a long awaited abandonment they’d both seen coming for a while.

Still, it wasn’t everything. He has his friends and his career. He begins training in the air force, long hours and arduous exercise . That, and studying science, it’s been a perfect combination of exhilaration and investigation, and he picks up the pieces of the life he had let stretch beyond their measure, scattered between what he thought to be perfection. There’s more left to recover than he’d imagined. 

And, within good time, he finds himself encircled by more than he could have ever hoped for. It’s less intimate - he’s left with a clear space around himself which no one can touch and a protective guard who loves him more than enough not to touch him either, which is. It’s nice. It’s surprisingly comforting. 

It turns out, he’s not the only one. There’s Liz, never quite matched in any respect, never quite bothered to even try. Jamie, so far from home, always looking back. Tegan, also misplaced, but always looking forward, forever dancing. Zoe living in her own little world, Harry always a second behind everyone else. They found themselves a little corner of the world, tucked away amongst the books and the barricade of knowledge and stayed there, together. There were others too - they came and fell with the seasons, and they taught him about the world. Adric with his hands that were always too soft and Romana who understood more about art than anyone he’d ever met, but hated it all the same.  

They become his family and he becomes their legacy. One by one they peel away, and somehow, as if it’s the only thing he knows how to do best, he remains. 

After the first century has come and passed, solo flights at twilight are a long distant memory, his jacket elbows have been replaced more than twice, and his office in the academic department has become something of a permanent fixture. It’s developed through the years, as items lose or gain significance, photographs fade and dust gathers in the corners of the shelves he’s long forgotten to notice. Though his name is still clearly printed across the sturdy door to his office, the door itself is rarely closed enough to read, and most people are starting to lose track of his name; they mostly call him, “The Doctor”- or even a sneaky “Professor”, from Ace, sitting in the front row with her tattered leather jacket and strawberry chewing gum. She doesn’t last longer than a couple of semesters, but as she heads off to an apprenticeship in Electromechanical Explosive Engineering, he can honestly say he’s never been so pleased or proud to see one of his students leaving university without finishing their degree.

Still, his life is always a little emptier with every loss, including hers. By now, he’s attended more funerals than he can accurately recall and learnt the cost of true friendship many times over. Sarah Jane still visits him, when she can. Her son seems to grow inches between weekends, but the wrinkles forming in the corner of her eyes are warm and pleased, and he hugs her tightly every time they meet, not wanting to wait for the inevitable, but catching himself wondering each time, all the same.

And so, he smiles a little less, asks a little less, and manages to please himself in the quiet company of his books, resigned to new theoretical discovery and scientific process. His work is more astonishing than ever; his life is wrecked with loneliness. But, he tells himself, it’s for the best. No more.

Or that’s what he tells himself, until he meets her.

Meets her might be a slight over statement, she doesn’t quite appear seated in one of his lecture, or walk into the smaller tutorial room. He doesn’t even meet her at one of the university function he sometimes brings himself to attend, for a few hours at most, until he can slip away again to the tranquillity of his solitude.

He runs into Rose outside the student café. Runs into, in that he nearly is knocked to the ground but a whirling human form- blonde hair, denim jacket, long boots – as it comes hurrying around the corner.

“Fuck!” She cries, holding out a hand to help him to his feet, “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m- I’m just late, are you okay?”

He nods, brushing down the front of his jacket, though mainly for effect, and watching as she quickly gathers up the books which scattered to the ground as he fell. 

“Fine, thanks,” He smiles, taking the books from her. “What class are you heading to?”

“Oh,” She smiles, blushes, but keeps her gaze steady, “First shift on the floor.” She gestures to the cafe behind her.

“Oh!” He replies, with an apparent, altogether sudden embarrassingly inadequate vocabulary. “Good luck!” 

Her grin grows wider, she turns and runs away. 

They meet again in the hallway. This time, she has the stack of books in her arms.

“What, did you think I was just here to make second grade coffee?”

All these years, and not once had he tried the campus cafe’s coffee.

(It is pretty terrible.)

She, as if by insistence of ignorance, doesn’t take a single one of his classes. At this point, he’s essentially written or published the basis of most core science streams. If not by merit, by sheer, dumbfound endurance. She majors in literature and politics and grins as she walks past the open door to his lecture theatre on her way to Japanese history. One day, she passes him the reading list for gender studies across the table in the cafe they’ve come to claim as theirs over the past few months. He reads the ones she highlighted and wonder how he could pass so many decades and only see life in one regard. 

“Oh,” She exclaims, with pure, improbable delight. “Just you wait. This is just the beginning.” 

He teaches her about the stars. They’re his most consistent and distant friend. And she is earnest and delighted, slow to understand what she’s never approached, but endlessly eager. Her smile is a glimmer of beauty in the starlight and he watches, he aches. 

As she slips her hand into his, there’s a long distant pang of familiarity that he had honestly never expected to encounter again, not now. Not after all this time. Her hand is small and warm, her skin feels bizarre yet familiar against hers and he can’t decide whether his heart is racing or if time all around them has slowed almost to a halt. 

She calls his name after him as he runs away, and never has he felt more a coward. Sarah Jane passes him a hand baked cookie with shaking hands and a steadfast love, and tells him to invite her over Sunday dinner sometime. But he’s a coward, that’s what he is.

And she is spectacular. And she finds him. 

The door is, as always, open.

“I know who you are,” She starts, “I’ve heard stories about you ever since I knew what this place was, from my parents, from history, from fairy tales.” 

He doesn’t want to stop her now, but he can’t bear to see her leave. 

“The stories aren’t me.” He says. It’s true. But it’s all true. 

“I know,” She replies, “Like I said. I know who you are.” 

She smiles, and the world is improbably, impossibly calm. She takes his hand and hers is small and warm and holds his with a grasp that promises nothing but takes nothing either. They sit and the silence is warm. 

She asks, “All this time, what were you waiting for?” 

And he means to reply, he really does. But instead of clever words and prose, his lips instead find hers. It’s terrible and romantic, just like those awful films, but maybe there’s a reason they were such classics. 

She smiles like the stars and the world moves on around them. But they stay there, just a moment longer, together. 


End file.
